Nutritional screening with Subjective Global Assessment predicts hospital stay in patients with digestive diseases.

Objective: Nutritional status is an important factor that determines hospital stay, and the Subjective Global Assessment (SGA) is a candidate tool for nutritional screening on admission. However, the significance of the SGA has not been evaluated well in the ward for digestive diseases. We conducted the present study to test whether the SGA predicts hospital stay of these patients.

Oral branched-chain amino acid supplementation improves the oxidized/reduced albumin ratio in patients with liver cirrhosis.

Aim: Branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) supplementation improves hypoalbuminemia in decompensated cirrhotics. Recently, it was clarified that the ratio of oxidized albumin within total albumin rises with progression of liver cirrhosis. We conducted a feasibility study to investigate whether BCAA supplementation might improve this ratio.